Authors

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-16-2017

Abstract

Objective

Recent evidence suggests that experiences of discrimination contribute to socioeconomic status health disparities. The current study examined if the experience and regulation of anger—an expected emotional response to discrimination—serves as an explanatory factor for the previously documented links between socioeconomic disadvantage (SED), discrimination, and allostatic load.

Methods

Data were drawn from the second wave of the Midlife Development in the U.S. study and included 909 adults who participated in the biomarkers subproject.

Results

Results revealed that perceived discrimination was associated with higher levels of allostatic load. Furthermore, we found evidence that perceived discrimination and anger control sequentially explained the relationship between SED and allostatic load, such that greater discrimination was associated with lower levels of anger control, which, in turn accounted for the effects of discrimination on allostatic load. These results remained significant after controlling for negative affect, other forms of anger expression, as well as demographic covariates.

Conclusions

Our findings suggest that low anger control may be an important psychological pathway through which experiences of discrimination influence health.

Comments

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Journal of Psychosomatic Research. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Psychosomatic Research,volume 103, in 2017. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2017.10.002

The Creative Commons license below applies only to this version of the article.

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